Avalanche

Epic; 2013

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Music from this release

Quadron are a musician’s band. The Danish duo count Prince, Kendrick Lamar, and Pharrell amongst their many famous fans. It’s not hard to see their appeal: Airtight and carefully virtuosic, they’re perfectly wrapped up in their own hermetically sealed pop world. The attraction largely boils down to singer Coco O’s elastic voice, sometimes chirpy and sometimes soulful. She works in the tradition of the last decade’s neo-soul elite, channeling the jazzy effortlessness of Amy Winehouse circa Frank and the vulnerability of also-ran Duffy, shapeshifting between extremes mid-song. Avalanche is the duo’s second album, and the one that’s poised to earn them wider attention off the back of simple and effective songcraft.

Coco’s partner is Robin Hannibal, also the mastermind behind buzzed-about R&B act Rhye. Avalanche is dominated by his touch, an oh-so-perfect production hand that brings to mind the fastidious fuss of Fleetwood Mac minus the shag carpet thud. This all-consuming perfection is at once Quadron’s most alienating and tantalizing quality-- no alarms and no surprises-- set out in clear tones from the very beginning with “LFT”. Cautious horns, careful guitar, and flamboyant strings offer an impossibly polished surface for Coco’s vocals to glide over, singing a melody that’s just twisty enough not to challenge the listener. “Yes I’m still looking/ Looking for trouble,” she intones defiantly, as if trying to prove her own edginess in a world of perfectly rounded corners.

The duo have deservedly received plenty of pre-release attention for Avalanche’s first single “Hey Love”. With its throbbing hand percussion and Timbaland-worthy vocal snippets, it has all the precociousness of one of those folky ditties that soundtracked iPod commercials at their ubiquitous peak in the mid 2000s. It’s bolstered with an earworm of a chorus, but it’s a bit of a fake-out: Avalanche prefers intimate ballads over perky pop, offering nothing else as jaunty as “Hey Love”. That’s not a bad thing in itself, but the songs feel a little insincere when saddled with the band’s generic lyrics.

The way Coco borrows mannerisms from country, 60s pop, and other recognizable signifiers brings to mind Camera Obscura stripped of their excess and showmanship. But her lyrics lack that band's depth and detail, meaning her vocal tics have to pick up the slack. On songs like “Crush”, she’s front and centre, exploring every corner of her voice, and moving from raspy and snarky to hurt and forlorn at the flip of a coin. These slower tracks are a catch 22, however, because when she doesn’t have a stellar melody to orient her, like on “Befriend”, it feels like she’s merely stringing together cliches. Other attempts at more upbeat pop (“Neverland”, “It’s Gonna Get You”) are anodyne and patently inoffensive, music made to be quietly piped through coffee shop speakers.

But when they’re on, they’re on. Avalanche ends with a stretch of soft-rock stunners, including the heartfelt title track and the slide guitar daydream of “Sea Salt”. “Better Off”, with its summer afternoon swing and gentle ebb, is arguably the album’s best song-- here Coco’s vocals sound expert and controlled, topped off with an appearance from a sedate Kendrick Lamar. He’s neutered and hushed to fit into their own cultivated world, because above all, Quadron inhabit a very specific universe on Avalanche, one where no note or sound is out of place. If schlocky FM-lite pop is what you’re into, there’s lots to like on Avalanche, but it’s an album that feels hard to love. Avalanche’s obsessive squeaky cleanness keeps its audience at a distance. Coco might insist that she’s still looking for trouble, but there’s none to be found on Avalanche.